Crusaders avoid wooden spoon

It was a long time coming, but Coventry & Warwickshire BUPA Crusaders produced their best form of the season in their final NBL outing to crush Inter-Basket 103-72 and avoid the indignity of the wooden spoon.

It was a long time coming, but Coventry & Warwickshire BUPA Crusaders produced their best form of the season in their final NBL outing to crush Inter-Basket 103-72 and avoid the indignity of the wooden spoon.

?If we could have done that all season we would be in a different position,? said head coach Dip Donaldson.

?The guys tonight sacrificed for each other and all got involved, and the only time we struggled was when we reverted back to old ways - dribbling, throwing the ball away and trying to do it alone.

?By putting the right players on together and them working as a team we were able to get it back. They all dived in and made the most of it.

?It was a collective effort, every one that came in gave us a contribution. That was because they had the mental focus to carry it through to a game night.

?In training that is what it has looked like - we play that dominant against each other. They know that they have had a horrible season, but they wanted to do well, they wanted to prove to themselves and show the crowd that they deserved better. They had been disappointed with themselves and went out to prove a point.?

Donaldson was particularly delighted with the performance of Ed Baynes-Clarke, who has been plagued by injuries this season but grabbed the opportunity for a starting-five berth to turn in a polished display.

? He is a good student of the game because he has had to sit on the bench behind more experienced players,? said the coach. ?He has been well groomed and next season will be a force to be reckoned with.?

Baynes-Clarke and Chris Harper were behind many of Crusaders? best thrusts as the home side shrugged off a stuttering start to open up a 35-20 gap by the close of the first quarter.

With Alvin Scott also prominent, they built on that momentum to move 53-30 ahead, but then Perry Lawson inspired a surge of 18 straight points that slashed the deficit to five points.

Rattled Crusaders made life more difficult for themselves by incurring some technical fouls before a time-out enabled them to regain some of their composure and claim a 60-48 cushion at the half-way stage.

They tightened that grip in the third quarter as Inter-Basket scored just once from nine attempts while their hosts were reeling off seven out of eight. And although Mansour Mbye was proving an elegant influence for the Londoners, the lead was a commanding 73-53 going into the final session.

Inter-Basket never looked likely to turn that situation around in the fourth quarter - their frustration underlined when Lawson felled a startled Manny Sharland with a rugby-style tackle - and skipper Derrick Pope bolstered his season?s haul to 563 points as Crusaders cruisedhome.